1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, and a method therefor, which is communicatively connected, via a network, to a portable terminal carried by a user, and to a plurality of printing apparatuses provided at various locations, and which outputs, in response to a data print request from the portable terminal, data associated with the data print request to one of the printing apparatuses. More specifically, the invention relates to a data output control apparatus which allows detailed information on a network to be readily obtained, which is advantageous with respect to cost, and which is suitable for specifically notifying the user of the service charge.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, information on the Internet is readily available anywhere using, for example, i-mode™ provided by NTT Mobile Communications Network, Inc. (NTT DoCoMo).
However, although such a portable terminal allows information on the Internet to be readily obtained anywhere, because the structure of display is simplified for purposes, such as reducing the size of, and saving energy for, the portable terminal, the displayed information is rather simplified compared with a display on an ordinary personal computer. Thus, a user is not satisfied with the information service.
Accordingly, in order to provide detailed information while continuing to reduce the size of, and save energy for, the portable terminal, an arrangement can be provided in which, by combining a portable terminal and a printing apparatus, rough information is displayed on the portable terminal, while detailed information is printed by the printing apparatus. However, this arrangement of combining the portable terminal and printing apparatus faces several technical problems which must be solved.
For example, since the printing apparatus is large in size and is difficult for a user to carry with the portable terminal, in order to print the detailed information, ordinarily, a printing apparatus that is provided at a home or at an office will be used. However, use of a fixed, particular printing apparatus would hardly allow information to be readily obtained anywhere. In order to achieve this, it is required that either the size of the printing apparatus be reduced to such an extent as to allow it to be carried, or that an arbitrary printing apparatus be allowed to be used. The former is not feasible because it is technically very difficult to achieve with presently available technology. The latter is not feasible either because each printing apparatus requires a unique driver, thus requiring that the portable terminal be embedded with drivers for each of the printing apparatuses to be used.
Furthermore, for example, when such a print service is provided, the service provider needs to receive, from the user, the service charge as the price of the print service. In this case, when the user prints data using a printing apparatus and receives the printed material, for example, it may be such that the user pays the service charge in accordance with the number of prints. However, when the number of prints is large, manual counting would take energy and time, and also tend to cause miscounts. In case of a miscount, it is impossible to specifically notify the user of the service charge. Meanwhile, in an arrangement in which counters which count the number of prints is provided in printing apparatuses in order to count the number of prints, each of the printing apparatuses needs to be provided with a counter, incurring an increased cost. Furthermore, in accordance with such a payment method, in order to receive the printed materials, the user needs to carry enough money to pay the service charge; if the user does not carry enough money, the user is not allowed to receive the printed materials, which does not allow information to be readily obtained anywhere.